WILL INSLEY
(1929-2011)

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WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC manages the artwork and archive of the estate of Will Insley (1929-2011).

ARTWORK

1950s-2000s: THE PROJECT OF ONECITY

In Will’s manuscripts, he defined ONECITY as:
… a labyrinthine structure buried in the central North American plains, spanning over 675 miles square between the Mississippi River and the Colorado Mountains. ONECITY is designed to hold 400 million people, and has very little to do with advanced city planning theories of the present or with the projected utopian golden cities of the future, but rather with the dark cities of mythology which exist outside of normal time in some strange location of extremity.

Grayscale map of the US with a superimposed labyrinth in the center of the country

Insley’s map of ONECITY divides the structure into six different sectors:
(1) Abstract /Buildings/ - Religious structures found in remote areas of the country’s wilderness; they were initiated before the development of ONECITY.

(2) The Outer Fields - Stretches of countryside which are pulled into the center of the city by the building spirals of the Outer City.

(3) The Outer City - A chain of buildings composed of four spiral arms which contain a possible 14,000 building units devoted to city living and working.

(4) The Inner Fields - A 135 mile square of wasteland at the center of the Outer City structure.

(5) The Inner City - An empty building which is not connected to the practical network of electricity, plumbing and communications and is bereft of all utilitarian systems; it holds analogous properties to the abstract /buildings/ outside of ONECITY.

(6) The Opaque Library - Buried in the center of the Inner City, the Opaque Library holds the seed and soul of ONECITY. No one is allowed access to the space; however they may peer through the brief slits in its upper shell, which lets the viewer spy on the mystery. Some bits of information have been accidentally uncovered in our own time, and these pieces are viewed in facsimile as fragments of the Library walls.

THE EARLY 1960s: DEVELOPING ONECITY

In the 1960s, Insley created large scale modular paintings, exploring the meanings of the elementary geometric forms painted in bright acrylics. In the 2007 leading art publication, The New American Abstraction 1950-1970, Claudine Humblet writes the following on Will Insley's early series of paintings:

"The universe of fragments opened up between 1961 and 1963 with a multitude of cutout forms, flat shapes with four elements symmetrically arranged around a central opening (...) The shaping of the external form was to serve the path taken by art as "object". Insley's personal concentration in isolating his "object" from its context (architectural and pictorial) was to lead him in gradually, during an enthralling investigation of the inner field of painting, to rediscover the hidden significance of the "fragment". This became the sole tangible sign of the link between the "painting" (wall fragment) and architecture, the overall project of which was to be revealed only in the course of numerous stages inviting the viewer to decipher the secret meaning of the work presented.". In Insley's own words, "Between '61 and '63 I did my first series of shaped paintings, using cloverleaf forms around a central hole. My painting quickly shed all its "painting" aspects save its diagrammatic nature and moved into the mind in search of the source of its fragments."

As Insley moved into 1967, he started to consider the lost civilization. It is during this time that Will moved from his more painterly wall fragments of the early 1960s, to his 1968 Ruler Series.

Will Insley © Westwood Gallery NYC.

Large abstract painting of irregular shape, colors are chrome yellow and vermillion red

Black abstract painting shaped as a quatrefoil, with empty square as center, outlined by parallel yellow lines on each side

Black abstract painting shaped as a rotated quatrefoil with a yellow grid superimposed and an empty square as center

Black abstract painting composed of four connected squares, with a yellow grid superimposed and an empty square as center

Abstract shaped painting similar to a quatrefoil with yellow and red strips and an empty square in the center

Abstract turbine-shaped painting, with empty center square; yellow strip with grid towards center, dark blue exterior strip

Abstract circular black painting, with empty circle in the center

Abstract painting shaped like reversed U, painted in modules of cadmium red, chrome yellow and dark blue

Abstract turbine-shaped painting, with empty center square, painted in English red, black and olive green

Large abstract shaped painting of irregular size in a grid structure of bright yellow on black

Abstract turbine shaped modular painting, with red lines on black background and empty center square

Abstract painting composed of four connected squares, chrome yellow with cobalt blue lines, and empty center square

Abstract painting made of four connected squares (blue, orange, red background, white circles on each), empty center square

Abstract shaped painting similar to a quatrefoil with yellow and red sections and an empty square in the center

Abstract shaped painting similar to a turbine, with squares painted silver, black, red and empty center square

THE 1970s: DISCOVERING ARCHITECTURAL ABSTRACTION

While developing his late 1960s Ruler Series, Will started to discover the abstract /buildings/ outside of ONECITY. Through models, drawings and photomontages, Will numbered and captured each /building/ in wilderness. In his unpublished manuscript, Insley writes:
The complex formal vocabulary of ONECITY has its origin in a series of /buildings/ located in remote areas of the countries wilderness. A parallel can be drawn between their nature and mythological considerations and they could thus be regarded as religious structures.

Will Insley © Westwood Gallery NYC.

Architectural drawing in black ink of a square building seen diagonally from above

Architectural drawing in black ink of four square buildings of unequal sizes, seen from above

Architectural drawing in colored inks of a building seen in section, aboveground and underground

Detail of an architectural drawing in colored ink of a building seen in section, aboveground and underground

Architectural drawing in ink of a building seen from above

Architectural drawing in ink of a long building seen from above

Architectural drawing in ink of a square building seen from above

Architectural drawing in colored inks of a square building seen from above

Black and white photograph in perspective of an L-shaped building with a labyrinth on one side, seen from above

Black and white photograph of a building

Close-up black and white photograph of a grid wall structure in perspective

Black and white close-up photograph of a grid wall structure in perspective

The abstract architectural qualities of the /buildings/ brought Will back to revisit the early Wall Fragments. In his 1975 series, Insley developed a basis of subdivisions subjecting the fragments to arithmetic progressions as well as mirror-image inversions upon which the form, interior design, and the color of the fragments depended.

Two triangular paintings, mirroring each other, one white and one black, with line grids in contrasting color

Two trapezoid paintings, mirroring each other, one black and one white, with line grids in contrasting color

Two triangular paintings, mirroring each other, one black and one white, with line grids in contrasting color

Two white triangular paintings, mirroring each other, with line grids in contrasting black

THE EARLY 1980s: ELABORATING ON THE ONECITY STRUCTURE

As Insley moved into the 1980s, he began to conceive and create ONECITY through elaborate ink drawings. Many of these drawings pull diagrammatic language from his school years studying formal architecture, while incorporating the abstract mythological visions seen in his abstract /buildings/ outside of the city center.

WILL INSLEY (1929-2011)

ARTWORK ​​

WILL INSLEY
(1929-2011)

ARTWORK